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MartinHafer "Naughty But Nice" is a pleasant Dick Powell musical comedy--more enjoyable than many of his other 30s films. He plays Professor Hardwick, a very straight-laced guy who likes writing classical- style music. However, when he accidentally gets drunk, he becomes a bit of a wild man and ends up giving in to his hidden inner urge to write dreaded swing music! Later, after the Hudson Music company publishes one of his songs, they learn it might be plagiarized and sue him.This is a very slight movie that never takes itself seriously and has a nice sense of humor. My only complaint is that Ann Sheridan is featured first in the credits but it's more a Dick Powell film. In fact, Gale Page is more prominent in the film but comes third-- and this must be some sort of testament to the sudden star power of Sheridan. If you do watch, you'll also see Ronald Reagan in one of his earliest roles in .

utgard14 Stuffy music professor (Dick Powell) hates popular swing music but the only person interested in the rhapsody he's written is a pop music lyricist (Gale Page). She puts words to his music and turns it into a big hit with the swing crowd. The duo are very successful until a sexy singer (Ann Sheridan) tries to lure the professor astray.Nice comedy with a good cast. Powell does fine but, despite the plot involving music, he never sings. He does learn what the A, B, and C types of love are from Gale Page and Ann Sheridan. Page is wonderful. She has a genial charm about her that is a joy to watch. Sheridan is sexy and, well, full of oomph! A very fun ing cast with the likes of ZaSu Pitts, Maxie Rosenbloom, Allen Jenkins, and Vera Lewis. Granville Bates has a funny role as a judge. Songs are nothing special but the humor and likable cast helps.

Ken Peters (wireshock) As a Dick Powell fan, the premise of this picture sounded great: a college music professor, despite his disapproval of "swing" music, ends up becoming the best-selling composer on the pop hit parade. The comic opportunities in this scenario, not to mention Powell's mellifluous singing voice, are needlessly squandered however--no doubt this movie disappointed Powell's fans back in '39 as much as it did this viewer in 2001.The story promises great things and delivers on none of them:Powell writes hit songs with a beautiful lyricist, but we never see them working together. Powell never even sings in this picture, despite 5 new songs by the same team (Johnny Mercer & Harry Warren) who gave us "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" which Powell crooned to Olivia de Havilland in the previous year's "Hard to Get".They don't even let Dick Powell BE Dick Powell: he plays a nerdy guy lacking in social grace and appeal--and two women vie for his attention. Granted, Powell plays a convincing, somewhat lovable "four-eyed" geek, but the plot keeps hinting that, with a few potent "lemonades", he's a dancing dynamo and the life of the party! But everytime he heads out to the dance floor to strut his stuff there's a fade out and we only find out what a blast he had the night before from an item in the newspaper.What great fun it might have been if the college prof learned to sing, swing and love. But he stays a nerd, writes hit tunes reluctantly and ends up with the girl formulaically without a spark between them. [Sigh...]

Randy_D Dick Powell , in this film, is the unlikely, subject of a would-be love triangle with Gale Page and Ann Sheridan. Unlikely because he resembles David Byrne from the Talking Heads and isn't exactly the type of guy you'd think Page and Sheridan would fight over.That being said, the real reason to watch this movie is Ann Sheridan, who is beautiful, but gorgeous.All in all Naughty But Nice is good, but ok.